Because I Kickstarted this game, it was difficult to keep this just as my “First Impressions” and not a full-fledged review. I was going over this game with a magnifying glass last night, making sure not to miss anything because I was so excited about it but that enthusiasm will be saved for a review next week. An hour and half of gameplay gives you quite a bit and here is my take.
I am honestly torn and I hate it.
I had higher hopes for the game when that download finally finished than what I received in my short playthrough.
It looks like a good game and that’s just it; a “good” game. There are minor clipping issues but again it’s still good, not great. Funny and silly characters like the ones from the Banjo and Kazooie games are here and they have their own flair to them and I liked that but then I am pulled in the direction of how the audio wasn’t looped well in the title screen and you can’t ignore that.
It was a constant tug of war with my emotions as I was playing it. For a moment, I was playing because I had to see that it was going to get better because what I was shown just wasn’t good enough.
I don’t want to nitpick the game…yet. That’s what a review is for but I want to enjoy this game and I hope it lets me do that.
Yooka-Laylee – “Good, not great…”
I’ve been playing it for a few hours, and I can’t say that I’m enjoying myself, the levels so far seem really slapped together, without any kind of cohesive path. It really needs a minimap, and the ability to rebind buttons. I like it’s humor, but the whole “look at how video games used to be!?” is starting to get a bit old. And I don’t think I hate it, but there’s a difficulty to the game that seems to be 50% unnecessary difficulty, and 50% bad controls. Whether it’s the flying spine shooters that can’t be killled except in a small window of time, or the enemies that crowd around you during cutscenes so that when the cutscene is over they end up hitting you as you regain control. Or the fact that you will have to return to previous levels multiple times because you can’t get all pagies or quills until you get all the moves.
I agree. I am concerned that only good points this game will get will be on the nostalgia factor but that’s what an proper review is for.